Food for Thought: Don't Feed Negative Emotions

By , SparkPeople Blogger
I believe that things happen in life for a reason. The people we meet, the experiences we have, the books we read, they all teach us something, if we're willing to pause and take notice.

While on vacation, I finished reading a book that had a tremendous effect on me: "Taking the Leap: Freeing Ourselves from Old Habits and Fears," by Pema Chodron, the American Buddhist nun and spiritual teacher.

Each of the 10 chapters was a poignant lesson for me, and I can and will write more about how these simple yet profound words affected me. This book was exactly what I needed to read at exactly the appropriate time. Today, I want to share with you a quick lesson that has been infinitely useful to me even in the few days since I read it.

Citing Jill Bolte Taylor's "My Stroke of Insight" (another excellent read), Chodron says:

"A person does something that brings up unwanted feelings, and what happens? Do we open or close? Usually we involuntarily shut down, yet without a storyline to escalate our discomfort we still have easy access to our genuine heart. Right at this point we can recognize that we are closing, allow a gap, and leave room for change to happen. In Jill Bolte Taylor's book 'My Stroke of Insight,' she points to scientific evidence showing that the life span of any particular emotion is only one and a half minutes. After that we have to revive the emotions and get it going again.

Our usual process is that we automatically do revive it by feeding it with an internal conversation about how another person is the source of our discomfort. Maybe we strike out at them or at someone else--all because we don't want to go near the unpleasantness of what we're feeling."

Though Chodron is referring to dealing with people, I have found this approach is most effective in dealing with the emotions I bring on myself. I've taken that "90-second lifespan" fact and combined it with another lesson gleaned from the book to help myself move past rough patches of anxiety, fear, and self-doubt:

  1. Acknowledge that I'm having a feeling, such as anxiety when my to-do list is growing ever longer.

  2. Take three deep, long, slow breaths, sometimes closing my eyes. Rather than putting life on hold, I allow myself to "loosen" that feeling, and feel its effect on my body. I don't react, I just feel.

  3. I relax and move on.

Usually this works. Sometimes it doesn't. If three breaths aren't enough time, I stay longer. I visualize the stress leaving my body. I imagine it coming out of my body as I exhale, never to return. Using the breath in tandem with the mind is a powerful practice.

Yesterday, a friend wrote that she couldn't stop thinking about bingeing. It was consuming her thoughts, and it was stressing her out. The more she fought the thoughts, the stronger they felt.

I offered her this advice, telling her to remember that 90-second rule with emotions. It helped. The tightness loosened, she resisted the binge, and eventually the urge dwindled away.

I used the same tactic when panic reared up in me during travel. I closed my eyes, breathed, and felt the tentacles that had wrapped around my body and soul loosen. I chose to focus on breathing, on loosening panic's grip on me, on cutting off its food supply--my negative thoughts. Soon, the feeling dissipated.

Emotions and feelings are strong and powerful, and we can feel helpless when they enter our minds. This simple exercise is just one way that I assert control when I'm feeling something that shakes my core. I hope it helps you, too, and allows you to find a moment of peace amid a chaotic life.

How do you free yourself from negative feelings?